Two months on from COP26 in November 2021, Osborne Clarke’s Michael Kruger and Shraiya Thapa consider whether enough of the conference’s conversations translated into meaningful progress and highlight the areas where more work needs to be done as the world plans for a transition to net zero.

​Global collaboration

The key headline from COP26’s Transport Day was the signing of the 100 per cent zero-emission cars and vans declaration. This included, at its core, a pledge from signatories to work together towards all new car and van sales being zero-emission by 2040 globally, and 2035 in leading markets.

Renewable energy will meet over 70 per cent of China’s additional electricity demand in the next three years as coal’s role in powering the world’s second largest economy continues to decline, according to the International Energy Agency’s latest projection.
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Additional demand refers to any increase from today’s level.

Even as state subsidies are being phased out, the rapid growth of onshore wind and solar farm installations is expected to continue, with their combined generating capacity surging 75 per cent to 930 gigawatts by 2024 from 530GW in 2020, it projected.

WASHINGTON: The US government announced on Wednesday (Jan 12) it will auction more than 480,000 acres off the coasts of New York and New Jersey to build wind farms as part of its campaign to supply renewable energy to more than 10 million homes by 2030.
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Offshore wind developers will bid Feb 23 on six areas in the New York Bight - the most lots ever offered in a single auction - which could generate between 5.6 to seven gigawatts of energy, enough to power two million homes, the Interior Department said.

2021 was a landmark year for clean energy and climate policy, from dozens of nations pledging to phase out coal, to the most ambitious federal climate proposals in United States history, to automakers going all in on electrified transportation.
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Many of these developments were forecast by policy experts who thought Democratic control of the White House and Congress, fast-falling clean energy and electrified technology prices, and the undeniable need to confront climate change by cutting emissions portended a groundswell of action.

KUALA LUMPUR (THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION) - Global leaders who have pledged to halt deforestation by 2030 must move quickly to strengthen forest protection laws, line up funding, and include indigenous people in conservation efforts to have the best chance of success, environmentalists said.
​More than 100 leaders last month agreed to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade, underpinned by US$19 billion (S$25.7 billion) in public and private funds to invest in protecting and restoring forests.

China will continue to be the global leader in renewable energy capacity growth over the next five years, despite phasing out renewable subsidies and the country’s heavy reliance on coal, which will remain unchanged in 2022, according to analysts.
The global renewable energy sector saw strong growth in the past two years, with new generation capacity reaching nearly 280 gigawatts (GW) in 2020, about 45 per cent more than in 2019, marking the highest year-on-year increase since 1999, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).